edflyerssn007 wrote:Does anyone know which trains got the extra cars that these Marc's replaced? Basically which trains are longer?

The cars were brought in to give extra cars to the Montauk trains, especially the holiday weekends in the summer, when ridership spikes. Comparing the holiday car counts for Memorial Day and Independence Day Friday trains.

SEPTA never had any problems with them, and SEPTA had all 8 of the cars that came up to the LIRR. As many times as I rode them while they were here, only once did I encounter a warm car, and it was swapped out of the set within a day. It's not like they don't have occasional HVAC issues with the C3's (and they are not much to look at inside, either, IMO) or the MU's, especially the M3's. And perhaps the fact that they had to jury-rig the connections to the locomotives may have a slight unintended effect on things?

Humph. 1950's-vintage equipment, indeed? The MARC cars are at least two years newer than the M3's and have the same seats, albeit in different colors. Give them a bit of time, and they'll do just fine.

newkirk wrote:Silverliner II quote: "And perhaps the fact that they had to jury-rig the connections to the locomotives may have a slight unintended effect on things?"

Maybe dutchrailnut can chime in and see if that theory holds water.

From what I've seen, the MARC II's are being put on LIRR engines, not Amtrak engines. MARC cars and cabs are compatible with Amtrak engines. SEPTA was using NJT and Amtrak engines because SEPTA's cars were self-propelling via caternary.

STrRedWolf wrote:From what I've seen, the MARC II's are being put on LIRR engines, not Amtrak engines. MARC cars and cabs are compatible with Amtrak engines. SEPTA was using NJT and Amtrak engines because SEPTA's cars were self-propelling via caternary.

In the case of SEPTA, it was because we leased all the cars but needed locomotives to pull them. The MU's are out of the equation. The NJT set had its own locomotive simply because it came with the NJT set. The Amtrak locomotives went with the MARC sets because SEPTA needed electric motors to pull those trains.